Jessica Helfand
Showing 493 – 504 of 562 results
Jessica Helfand|Essays
What We Talk About When We Talk About Design History
From the packaging of our belongings to the presentation of our surroundings, most of us recognize that design has, over the course of the past century, become a ubiquitous component in everyday life. Design is signage and graffiti and …
Jessica Helfand|Essays
Separated at Birth: Method? Or Madness?
Left: Packaging by Karim Rashid. Right: Unknown.method© was begun in 1999 by a chemical engineer and a graphic designer, with an aim to create totally biodegradable, environmentally sound cleaning products. With packaging designed by …
Jessica Helfand|Essays
Freedom of Speech or Filching of Style? The New Law of Eminent Lo-Mein
Fonts found at The Dollar Store, December, 2005.There has been a considerable amount of debate recently about the impact of DIY on the design disciplines, and nowhere has this issue seemed more unresolved than in discussions of …
Jessica Helfand|Essays
The D Word
Online promo for House Hunters, HGTV, 2006.People who own homes understand the true meaning of the phrase "money pit." Expenses are constant, upkeep unstoppable, and the most vexing decisions are often dominated by things you never see: …
Jessica Helfand|Essays
Civilian Typography: The Power and The Fury
Left: Cover of Spoiled, Tom Varisco, 2005; Right: Photograph by Steph Goralnik, 2005.John Updike once wrote that the "itch" to make dark marks on white paper is shared by writers and artists. As for designers, that same itch translates to …
Jessica Helfand|Essays
Calling All Angels
Detail, Madonna di San Sisto, Raphael, 1519In traditional religions, the cosmological order of the universe recognized the primary function of the angel as a messenger of God. (The word "angelos" in Greek means messanger.) Angels were …
Jessica Helfand|Essays
Face Value
Facial transplants mapping our future: how much is the world of design responsible?
Jessica Helfand|Essays
Cease and Design
When my daughter, Fiona, was five years old and first learning to write, she came home from school one day and set to work. Pencil gripped firmly in her tiny hand, she wrote a word — then plunked her first and second fingers down …
Jessica Helfand|Essays
On Considering the Source
A friend of mine, a painter, recently saw a group exhibition at PS1 in New York in which he was struck by the absence of primary source material. Although intentionally abstract works, these paintings all referenced extremely specific …
Jessica Helfand|Essays
The Shock Of The Old: Rethinking Nostalgia
Nostalgia has always been a bad word for designers. Like "retro" and "vintage" it smacks of a sort of been-there-done-that ennui — looking backward instead of forward, nostalgia presents as the very antithesis of the new. Even …
Jessica Helfand|Essays
On Citizenship and Humanity: An Appeal for Design Reform
It has been a hectic month here in the United States: a month of unspeakable hurricane devastation, two Supreme Court nominations and just this morning, a national address by our President reinforcing the White House's steadfast support of …
Jessica Helfand|Video
John Stossel on Graphic Design
This film was made in 2005 for 20/20, a beloved AIGA National Conference segment in which twenty designers are asked to talk about something for one minute each. This particular year, the conference itself had no theme, leaving Jessica …